Page 36 of Days Of Valentino

“Yeah, but I’ll always be a McKinley, Lorenzo. Oh, and I forgot to tell you. My parents want us over on Saturday,” she says as she gets out of bed and walks naked into the bathroom.

I try and fail not to groan. Don’t get me wrong. I love my in-laws. They’re awesome. They made the most perfect woman after all. But my father-in-law wants to skin me alive and feed me to his fucking pigs. Literally. He hates the very sight of me. The only reason he hasn’t done it yet is because of Kyla and I heard his wife might have threatened him too.

I’m not scared of the guy. I could easily take him. I would never do that to my wife, though. She’s very close to her parents. Which is why I didn’t hesitate to pack up and move across the world to be with her. I want her happy. I miss my own family like hell. But I can easily fly back and forth between Melbourne and New York. Although with the number of times my phone goes off with messages at all hours of the night, you’d think I was still in the States.

Speaking of…

I look to my left and watch my phone vibrate across the nightstand. I reach over and pick it up, pulling the charger cord from the bottom. My sister’s number pops up. I click the green answer button and quickly bring the phone to my ear.

“Aurora, how’re things?” I answer, already knowing that if she’s calling me: One, she’s in trouble and needs bailing out. Two, someone else is in trouble and needs bailing out. Or three, shit’s about to hit the fucking fan and I need to get my ass home. Trouble and my little sister seem to go hand in hand. It’s how it’s always been. I don’t expect it to change anytime soon.

“Did you know about Enzo and the FBI chick?” she asks.

“The what now?” I sit up. The mention of my brother’s name and the use of the word FBI in the same sentence shouldn’t fucking happen.

“His new girlfriend. She’s an agent. Where the fuck have you been, Lorenzo? I’m in hiding and I still heard about it before you,” she says.

“News doesn’t travel as fast Down Under. Start at the beginning. How the fuck is Enzo mixed up with an agent?”

After Aurora gives me the rundown and informs me she already met the girl and likes her, I ring my brother. He called me while ago with some cryptic bullshit about how I knew my wife was the one. I had no idea he met someone or that that someone was a cop.

“Lorenzo, don’t even say it,” Enzo sighs into the phone as soon as the call connects.

“Don’t say what? That you’re a fucking idiot? That you need your head examined? What are you thinking dating a federal agent, Enzo? How exactly is that ever going to work out? I’ll tell you how, with your ass locked in a concrete cell,” I yell down the line in rapid Italian.

“First, she’s left her job. Second, I don’t fucking care what anyone thinks. She’s mine, and I’m not giving her up,” he yells back at me.

“She left her job? And you believe her?”

“I’m marrying her, Lorenzo,” he says quieter.

He’s marrying her.Fuck me. I really need to organize a flight home and sort this shit out. Why hasn’t Pops put a stop to this? Or any of the family, for that matter? Are they all just going along with this madness?

“What’s her name?” I ask him.

“Kayleigh,” he says.

“Last name?”

“I don’t need you running checks on her. She’s one hundred percent in this with me, Lorenzo. I gotta go, but you need to chill out. I have this under control,” he says, and then cuts the call.

I need to chill out?Fuck that.

Kyla walks back into the bedroom wrapped in a towel. “What’s going on? You yelling in Italian means someone fucked up, or is about to,” she says.

“My brother decided to hook up with a federal agent and no one thought it was necessary to tell me,” I grunt.

“How’d you find out then?”

“Aurora called.”

“Your sister called? How is she? Where is she?” Kyla seems more concerned about my sister than the fact Enzo is shacking up with a cop.

Am I the only one in this family who thinks this whole thing is a disaster waiting to happen?

“Lorenzo, your brother is a grown-ass adult. He’s fine. And besides, if the rest of your family is okay with this woman, you should be too,” she says.

“You’re probably right,” I tell her as I’m picking up my phone to message my cousin.

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